SOFIA (Bulgaria), October 2 (SeeNews) – Energy Solutions, the sole operating photovoltaic module manufacturer in Bulgaria, needs less than 1.0 million euro ($1.4 million) to double its installed capacity above 30 megawatts (MW) of panels, but awaits the market to mature, the company director Eleftherios Chatzakis said on Thursday.
The company, part of Greek industrial group Viohalco, only needs to buy equipment and will have no other costs for its capacity expansion, because the land, the buildings and the infrastructure will be provided by Stomana Industry, also part of the group, Chatzakis told SeeNews by phone from Athens.
An expansion of the company's current capacity of between 15 to 18 megawatts of solar panels will not take place before 2010, as the existing plant has not reached its full design capacity yet, he added.
The solar energy market in Bulgaria is still underdeveloped, because investors need incentives, Chatzakis said. He did not elaborate.
Bulgaria’s state energy regulator has set a purcahse price per megawatthour (MWh) generated by photovoltaic facilities at up to 782 levs ($561.2/400 euro), compared to a maximum of 175 levs for wind-generated electricity and 35.22 levs for electricity, generated in the country’s key coal-fired thermal power plant, Maritsa East 2.
Although tens of projects for photovoltaic parks in Bulgaria have been announced, only just a few have been completed. The situation is similar for the wind-power generation facilities, which despite respective legislation in place, still stay at around 120 MW of installed capacity, versus an estimated potential of 2,000 MW in the country.
Bulgaria, which joined the European Union in 2007, should generate at least 11% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010 and 16% by 2020 under agreements with the bloc. At present, the share of renewable energy produced in Bulgaria is around 5.0% and almost all of it is generated by hydropower plants.
Energy Solutions (www.energysolutions.gr), which started production in 2006, exports to Germany, Spain, Switzerland and France.
It is the first crystalline silicon photovoltaic module manufacturer in Bulgaria, founded by Greek copper and copper alloys processing company Halcor and Greek aluminium extrusion and aluminium composite panels producer Etem.
Bulgaria's Solarpro, the second producer of integrated photovoltaic panels in the country majority owned by local mineral extracting and processing company Kaolin, is building a factory that will become operational next year, a Kaolin official told SeeNews earlier this week. Solarpro, set up in late 2007, has already contracted the supply of 2.4 MW of integrated photovoltaic panels.
(1 euro = 1.95583 Bulgarian levs)
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